“Get Out,” the horror film written and directed by comedian Jordan Peele, notched the number one and then the number two spots at the box office. It’s now available to rent on Amazon and iTunes. In the movie, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young African-American photographer, travels with his white girlfriend (Allison Williams) to meet her parents for the first time. Things get weird.

Peele has called “Get Out” a social thriller, the latest in a line of movies that assert that, regardless of whatever scary thing is on screen — the devil, a hook-handed ghost, a serial killer — it’s actually society that is the true evil. As he said recently on the New York Times podcast “Still Processing”: “They all deal with this human monster, this societal monster. And the villain is us.”

‘Night of the Living Dead’

The low-budget 1968 movie that launched zombies into the horror movie pantheon tells the story of a group of people holed up in a house — including a single black protagonist (Duane Jones) — who try to fend off a zombie attack. Peele told The New York Times that the movie resonated with him in an extra way. “You could write an interesting essay about how the lead in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is a man living in fear every day,” he said, “so this is a challenge he is more equipped to take on than the white women living in the house.” (Where to watch)

‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’

A Civil Rights Era film with a social message, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” follows a young doctor (Sidney Poitier) as he meets his white girlfriend’s liberal parents (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) for the first time. Peele explained to GQ how the movie, released in 1967, influenced the awkward scenes in his film. One of the great things about “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” he noted, was that “anybody can relate to is the uncomfortableness of meeting your in-laws for the first time and being at a party where you’re the outsider.

“So the layer of race that enriches and complicates that tension” in “Get Out,” he continued, “becomes relatable. It’s made to be an inclusive movie.” (Where to watch)

‘Rosemary’s Baby’

In this 1968 film from Roman Polanski, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband (John Cassavetes) move into a grand and strange apartment building. As is the case with many New Yorkers, they discover that their neighbors are slightly creepy. Then Rosemary gets pregnant and they seem even creepier. “When I watch ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Stepford Wives,’” Peele said on “Still Processing,” “ I get some of that justified gender fears of men making decisions for women’s bodies.” The movie has terrified him since childhood: “I grew up actually a couple of blocks away from the building that was shot,” he told Forbes. “When I was younger, it was actually a little too close to home, so it really kind of it freaked me out more than I could appreciate it. It’s grown into possibly my favorite horror movie.” (Where to watch)

‘The People Under the Stairs’

Wes Craven had a long, blood-soaked career as the director of movies like “The Last House on the Left,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Scream.” In this 1991 film, after two burglars and a 13-year-old boy pick the wrong house to break into, the boy is caught by a creepy brother and sister who keep a brood of stolen people as their “children.” Speaking to the Village Voice, Peele said: “‘People Under the Stairs’ represents, whether intentionally or not, a certain fear of what goes on behind closed doors in white homes. And it also approaches the notion of enslavement of the people they’ve got hidden under the stairs.” (Where to watch)

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Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in “The Silence of the Lambs.”CreditOrion Pictures

‘The Silence of the Lambs’

It’s not Jodie Foster’s determined F.B.I. agent who caught Peele’s attention. It was Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), who looms over the film despite only being in it for a relatively short period of time. On “Still Processing,” Peele explained how he had used Lecter as guidance for his actors. “You’re not going to be the kind of villain people want to beat up,” he recalled telling Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener. “You’re going to have more charisma than that. I’m thinking in terms of like Hannibal Lecter, where he’s a bad man, but black people aren’t going to hate on Hannibal Lecter because he’s a bad man and he out-crazies everybody else’s crazy. I want you to kind of love them, even if they’re villains. They have style; they have character. They’re fun characters within themselves.” (Where to watch)

‘Scream’

This 1996 blockbuster by Craven portrays a typical suburban town terrorized by a serial killer who’s hunting down local teenagers. Peele borrows a trick from the opening scenes of “Scream,” in which an early character quickly becomes the first victim. Peele also cited the film as one that struck the tone he was looking for. It was effective, he told The Ringer, in how it self-consciously “addressed horror movies.”

“It had this postmodern reference,” he continued, “and so in that way it’s more realistic than a normal horror movie where there’s no knowledge of any horror tropes. I took a cue from that with the character Rod, so that we could have a character that expresses what the audience wishes somebody would say. And that wouldn’t be breaking the reality, it would actually be grounding it.” (Where to watch)

‘Rear Window’

Like the main character in “Get Out,” Jeff (James Stewart) is a photographer who observes a few things in his courtyard that no one else seems to notice. Saddled with a leg cast and stuck in a wheelchair, his hobby comes in handy when trying to catch a killer. Alfred Hitchcock keeps much of the action confined to Jeff’s apartment and to what he can see outside of his window in this thriller. (Where to watch)

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Kathy Bates in “Misery.”CreditMGM

‘Misery’

In this terrifying 1990 adaptation of the novel by Stephen King, a superfan traps her favorite author and holds him hostage, torturing him into writing her a new book that keeps his popular character alive. Kathy Bates went on to win an Oscar for her portrayal of the unassuming fan, who transforms from quaintly strange to truly frightening. You can see the influence of her performance in the false benevolence of Keener’s character, who also has a thing for teacups. (Where to watch)

‘The ’Burbs’

Evil neighbors who aren’t what they seem? People disappearing for no reason? If it sounds familiar from “Get Out, it also sounds a lot like this comedy from Joe Dante. In the film, Ray (Tom Hanks) just wants his suburban block to be peaceful, but after a suspicious group moves in down the street and one of his neighbors goes missing, Ray begins to suspect that the newcomers are actually a murderous cult. (Where to watch)

‘The Shining’

Peele cites this Stanley Kubrick film among his favorites horror movies, and he has already parodied it on the show “Key and Peele.” In the movie, Jack Torrance, a struggling writer (Jack Nicholson), moves his wife (Shelley Duvall) and child into an empty hotel for his new gig as a winter caretaker. But the hotel harbors dark secrets, and Jack’s writer’s block soon becomes the least of his problems. It’s no wonder Peele took a cue from the best Room 237 conspiracies and worked several hidden meanings into his film. (Where to watch)

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Tony Todd in “Candyman.”CreditPolyGram Filmed Entertainment

‘Candyman’

In this 1992 horror movie, a young, white, female grad student ventures into Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project, hoping to track down an urban legend about a ghost who kills his human prey with a hook — the spirit, legend has it, of a black man killed by a lynch mob because he fell in love with a white woman. Summoning him is said to be as easy as saying his name five times before a mirror. Don’t these people know not to tempt fate? (Where to watch)